u/Bismarck_1337

So, here's a little breakdown on Spellward from one day's worth of research I did.

Spellward is a fork of SS14 made by Imperial-Space (a controversial russian org. in the russian SS14 space)

Now, let's start with the simple things.

• They rely on heavy monetization and paywalling

You can just pay money to get priority for roles over people, and they are preparing a "Pass" system in their wiki. It's not just the queue... Some of their passes in their original servers also include "Bypassing all role time restrictions" which is blatant P2W

• They use generative AI everywhere, and their codebase is not well-maintained at all

1. As you can see in the pictures, this is blatant use of genAI in their website (which there's strong hints of being fully vibecoded)
2. Their codebase is like more behind than Goob in terms of upstream. They are running an ancient fork.
3. A lot of their PRs are vibecoded, you can just read the code yourself to easily tell. In fact, check recent PRs to see how bad it is.
4. They used genAI for videos, but once they got caught they instantly deleted it and replaced it with actual sprites from in-game.

• They have an ultra-restrictive license on their repo

Typical russian fork with license that does not allow taking code, or even thinking about opening a server with their code (who tf would want their code anyways). CLA larp. Usually a red flag for most people, as those forks tend to be very restrictive.

Their codebase also does NOT include all their content. Be wary.

• They actively delete comments in youtube

When I sent a comment talking about that stuff in their most recent video, they deleted it (in record time, less than 60 seconds). Which is super suspicious. Instead of responding to me, and telling me "No, you're wrong. X did not happen", they instantly evaporated my comment from all multiverses in mere seconds. That's why I'm making this post here in the first place.

I suggest you go play actual forks that have effort put into them, like CrystalEdge and (recently) Kraunlend. Or maybe help other forks, like Thief Manor to get their server running (I'm pretty sure the creator is looking for people to help them). But it's always up to you, in the end :)